Objectives:
- Understand what the origins are of the term “white collar crime”
- Know the long history of white collar crime
- Recognize the historical neglect of white collar crime by academic criminologists
- Be familiar with the central role of Edwin H. Sutherland in initiating the study of the subject
- Be able to discuss the competing definitions and typologies of white collar crime
Introduction
Law enforcement agencies and the public they serve often consider “crime” only in terms of acts of violence, threats of violence, and overt thefts. These common crimes have immediate and observable impact on victims. From the point of view of law enforcement agencies, such common crimes compel their priority attention because:
- The victims know they have suffered harm.
- The offender is easily perceived to be dangerous to personal safety of members of the community.
- The wrongful acts fall into familiar categories of crime.
- The consequences of the wrongful acts, to both victims and society, are clear.
- The acts to be investigated are relatively simple.
- It is easily confirmed and highly probable that a prosecutable crime has been committed.
- The more serious the harm to the victim, the more likely it is that prosecution will result
- There is substantial possibility that conviction will be followed by incarceration or, at the least, direct or close supervision of the offender.
When white collar crime is called to the attention of law enforcement agencies the issues are rarely so easily perceived, the human and financial costs may be greater than in the case of many common crimes. It is usual, after all, that a victim will physically recover from an assault, but the impact of fraud may continue for the lifetime of the victim; and white collar crime has a corrosive and corruptive effect on our society by souring our trust in one another, and in the business, social, and political institutions and networks which are so essential to our lives.
The human impact of white collar crime was movingly described in one newspaper account:
Beyond the cash he stole, [the offender’s] crime lies in smashing the delicate pattern of an elderly person’s life…. A lifetime of thrift, of small hard-won advances and setbacks painfully overcome left [the victim] with a tiny niche in the world. Now she finds herself computing on the backs of envelopes the money she has left against the years she might live. “I’m using up my savings and I’m worried about running out of money,” she said. “How many years will I have something to take care of me?”
Its contemporary significance as real crime was forcefully stated by a leading jurist, who said:
“In our complex society the accountant’s certificate and the lawyer’s opinion can be instruments for inflicting pecuniary loss more potent than the chisel or crowbar …”
It is nevertheless the fact that law enforcement authorities are often reluctant to undertake investigations and prosecutions. This reluctance stems from instinctive u